Sheesphead Bay High School to Hold Rally to Try and Stay Open

By GerritsenBeach.net, on November 9th, 2010

Next Friday – November 19 – at 3:00 Sheesphead Bay High School is having a rally to try and keep the school open.

We know the school year really just started but come NEXT September the city is going to try to close 19 schools , and try to phase out 16 more, continuing its strategy of closing some of the city’s largest high schools and replacing them with small schools or charter schools.

Sheepshead Bay is on the list of “persistently lowest achieving” schools and it will most likely be phased out and replaced with the smaller schools but it could also go though something called transformation.

Since Sheepshead Bay High School has been on the city list of “persistently lowest achieving” schools they are on the list to be phased out. The main problem being that their graduation rate has been consistently below 60% (2007: 52%, 2008: 55%, 2009: 57.4%)

Currently, the DOE is meeting with Sheepshead leadership to discuss what those statistics don’t reflect.

These “transformations schools” can hire two new kinds of teachers — master teachers and turnaround teachers — who will earn up to 30 percent more than their regular salaries for training teachers in addition to their regular duties. Those premiums, and other school improvements, will be financed by $2 million a year in federal stimulus money over the next three years.

Principals at most transformation schools will be removed, according to federal rules that must be followed in order to receive the money, even though teachers will not be dismissed.

16 comments to Sheesphead Bay High School to Hold Rally to Try and Stay Open

So lets keep building 30 story condos and 6 family homes, the more the merrier. Have you seen any new schools being built? I haven’t. Close more schools and hospitals! Great Idea NYC. No wonder the old timers flock to the south and out west.

I don’t think “closing” the school means demolishing the building. If I’m not mistaken, what usually happens is the actual structure is given a new name and will be occupied by a charter. If that’s the case, that’s fine with me.

What they will be doing is they will stop excepting freshman and kick out all the students that don’t want to be there(ones failing out or ones that don’t show up to school). Then they will have what they hope is 2 of the four floors open to have a new school come in. Till they have a new school on every floor. Every school will have it’s own name. The building will not be being knocked down. As far as seeing any new schools being built they just opened a new school maybe 2 years ago that’s on stillwell ave and ave p.

Here’s how it works: They close it down and replace it with new small schools, not charters. They screen out the worst kids and send those kids to Madison. Meanwhile, they’ll pressure the teachers at the new schools to pass any kid who shows up, no matter what kind of work the kid does. Because most of the new teachers will be untenured, they’ll go along. Lo and behold, graduation rates will go up.

Meanwhile, Madison will go down, the good kids will leave, and the graduation rate will plummet. The new chancellor will blame the teachers and the UFT, and all the right-wing morons in the press will back her up. Then Madison will close and the cycle will continue. They’ll send the worst kids to Murrow or Fort Hamilton and ruin those schools.

You are sooo right. I also wonder where the 300 HS students moving into IS278 next year will be from. Sheepshead? I don’t know what Kerrin O’Neill thinks is so great about the charters. When the numbers came out, the results were poor, lower than our traditional schools. And that is despite having more money, smaller class sizes, ‘hand picked teachers’, etc. Charters are nothing but the union hating Mayors attempt to break the union and try and blame the failure of parents and the students themselves on the teachers. Everyone needs to stop blaming the faculties and the unions and put it where it belongs. Some of these kids come to school only because the law says they have to. They disrupt the classrooms, vandalize the buildings, piss all over. They prevent those kids who want an education from getting it. It isn’t economic, there are many poor kids who get it and want their education seeing it as a way out. Many have parents that support them and know that an education is the way, but they are all hindered by the kids that are just disruptive. They need to stop this nonsense and pull out the kids who are doing nothing, for whatever reason, and put them in trade schools or find something for them that will help and leave in the kids who want to learn.

I still will never get why parents think teachers have all the time in the world to discipline their children. When I was growing up that came from my parents and respect for teacher and school was a must. If you came home from school and told your parents you were in trouble today at school first thing they would say was what did you do wrong? Not what did the teacher do wrong.Wake up school is for learning not discipline. If a teacher has to spend half the day disciplining what time is spent learning? Sad!!!

Three years ago I had the unfortunate necessity to go to Sheepshead Bay high to pick up some graduation records of my son who needed for a job application. My son graduated in the later part of the 80s so my new visit was quite an experience.

First I had to go through a metal detector passed a police officer then to a security officer who ask me for for identification and ask me to state my business. All the while I cannot believe the screaming by teachers and the uncontrollable students who were at the main lobby and hallway at the time. I traveled to 20 or so feet to the main office and requested my son’s graduation records and while waiting I observed all the rules and regulations posted throughout the office. Condescending would put it mildly and some were just plain rude towards the students. I don’t have any answers for what I saw but I can definitely say there was very little “education” going on.

My wife, who is a retired teacher, always said that the children who do well in school are the ones who parents are totally involved in their children’s education….. Enough said.

Three years ago I had the unfortunate necessity to go to Sheepshead Bay high to pick up some graduation records of my son who needed them for a job application. My son graduated in the later part of the 80s so my new visit was quite an experience.

First I had to go through a metal detector passed a police officer then to a security officer who ask me for identification. All the while I cannot believe the screaming by teachers and uncontrollable students who were in the main lobby and hallway at the time. I traveled the 20 or so feet to the main office and requested my son’s graduation records and while waiting I observed all the rules and regulations posted throughout the office. Condescending would put it mildly and some were just plain rude towards the students. I don’t have any answers for what I saw but I can definitely say there was very little “education” going on.

My wife, who is a retired teacher, always said that the children who do well in school are the ones who parents are involved in their children’s education……. Enough said.

Maybe High School isn’t for everybody. The American economy equation fails to sustain if everybody takes the same path. Yes, Everybody deserves a chance. And another. And another….and….another. But when you’ve skated through to your senior year with a 60 average, the same spiraled notebook you’ve used for every class this semester (which you just used to draw your wacky teacher) and your favorite Phillie hanging out of your pocket maybe you’re just sucking pointless tax money out of the necks of hardworking people who sit at home at night and naively hope that they’re money’s going to good use. Reform is not once in a blue moon. It’s perpetual. Don’t fix what’s not broken? It’s broken. Bad.

A friend of mine went to Sheepshead to apply for a job for the Custodial Crew. He was told that the Custodian won’t hire anyone from Gerritsen Beach! And The Custodian lives in the Beach!! What a pair! And isn’t that illegal?